Public Participation from Concept to Implementation: A Comparative Study of Rural Sewage Projects Under Village Planning in China

Rural sanitation projects in developing countries often stall during implementation even when funding and technical design are adequate. In China, such projects are delivered through village planning with mandated public participation—but completing statutory procedures does not guarantee cooperation once construction begins. This study examines why two villager groups, assigned the same sewage project under identical participation procedures, diverged at implementation: one completed its facility, the other abandoned it. Drawing on a paired case study in Guangxi combining questionnaire surveys (n = 172), interviews, event reconstruction, objective participation records (meeting frequencies, site visits, attendance rates), and field observation, we find that the divergence stems from whether statutory procedures generated high participation quality and whether that quality was converted into cooperation through key actors whose bridge capacity—the ability to mobilize relational resources across subgroup boundaries—was embedded in and sustained by the community’s social capital (trust, norms, network interaction). Where trust and norms were maintained through transparent accounts and proactive mediation, key actors convened deliberation and brokered compromises; where they eroded through account disputes and historical conflicts, bridge capacity collapsed. Within the constraints of a paired exploratory case study, this conversion mechanism offers a process-based account of how statutory participation becomes implementation cooperation in settings where infrastructure delivery depends on voluntary household coordination.